Thirty-two Spica-class torpedo boats provide a comparison with Italy's fleet destroyers. They carried three 4-inch guns in single mounts and four 18-inch torpedoes, arranged either in two twin launchers or in a mixture of two singles and one twin. The comparison illustrates how much of the older torpedo-boat role survived alongside the larger ships. In this reading, Italian destroyers retained similar tactical assumptions even as they grew. Leone and Navigatori offered steps toward a more capable destroyer, particularly after Navigatori received new clipper bows, but those departures did not become a sustained model for later development.
Notable Point · 56:30-57:34
Spica and the persistence of torpedo-boat roles
The Spica class makes the distinction between torpedo boats and fleet destroyers concrete, while Leone and Navigatori show alternatives Italy did not sustain.